Chapter 5

13 Home Business Ideas You Can Start Today

Hopefully by now, you’re getting pumped thinking about all the home business ideas that are out there. Or maybe you’re still unsure of which one to choose.

Even if you haven’t seen any ideas yet that stand out to you, you’ll be glad to know that there are plenty of other ways to make money from home. Some ways don’t even involve starting an ecommerce business or an online freelancing business.

For example, you might find that you actually do prefer to put on pants for your workday (gasp!), so you can get some fresh air and meet new people. In this case, you can look into some hands-on home business ideas where you service your clients in person – like being a party planner or dog walker.

Whatever you choose, you’ll likely have some questions like: What are the best platforms and methods to connect with clients? What do I need to prepare in advance? What do these ideas actually involve?

We’ll get you set up with all the basics so you can make your first moves.

In this chapter, we’ll go over 12 different home business ideas that you can start on right away. From your own blog to online teaching to a dog walking business in your neighborhood, we’ll cover home-based, legit business opportunities you can do online as well hands-on business that get you out into your community.

5.1. Online Business from Home

Some people need the thrill of working outside their home and interacting one-on-one with other people. Others hiss when they see the sun, hiding away in their basement until they need to come out for food or do adulting things like go to the bank.

Chances are, you’re somewhere in the middle. But if you’re the type of person who prefers to work from the comfort of home – without having to communicate in-person with your clients – an online gig is the business for you.

Let’s discuss some booming home-based business opportunities and how you can get off the ground.

1. Dropshipping

The Lowdown

Dropshipping is a no brainer if you are looking to set up an online business, working from home.

The dropshipping business model is simple – chose products to place on your website, sell products to your customer, then order products from your suppliers delivered straight to your customer’s door.

There is no need to spend money buying bulk products, renting warehouse space, or incurring delivery and packaging costs.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

There are tonnes of ways to make money with dropshipping as there are many different categories of products to sell. The most popular categories of product to sell via dropshipping include:

How to Get Started

Getting started with dropshipping is easy. All you need is to sign up to Oberlo for access to thousands of suppliers worldwide and build your online store with Shopify.

Once you have decided what to sell through your online store you can find variations of the product on Oberlo’s App, import them to your Shopify store, and begin marketing the product to your audience.

More Resources

4. Starting a Podcast

The Lowdown

In recent years, podcasts have become a popular way to get news, entertainment, and insights on-the-go. In fact, Edison Research shows that the number of podcast listeners has doubled in four years. That number is only growing.

And like a blog or YouTube channel, starting a podcast could be an awesome stand-alone home business idea as well as an ecommerce marketing tool.

5. Affiliate Marketing

The Lowdown

Finally, we’re here. In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is one of the surefire ways to earn money online, and it can be a hugely profitable home biz idea. It involves an advertiser, publisher, and consumer.

First, you (the publisher) promote the offerings of another party (the advertiser) on your own channels. These usually show up as trackable affiliate links, but can also be done through things like promo codes. Then when other people (consumers) click your links and buy the advertiser’s stuff, you get a piece of that profit.

6. Online Surveys

The Lowdown

Companies are dying for market research so they can make better products and services for their customers. As a result, many of them pay people to take surveys online.

Beware, though: some of these sites aren’t legit. Do your research first. And you should manage your expectations: this will get you a few extra bucks, but likely not a full-time income.

Generally speaking, the price may range from a few cents to a few dollars per survey. But if you’ve got a lot of time, taking surveys could be a low-effort home business idea.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

Browse online survey websites for surveys that you qualify for based on certain demographics, characteristics, or behaviors.

Check closely to see how each website will pay you. Some pay cash value for each survey, while others work on a point system where points are exchanged for rewards and money.

When you do surveys for money, payment can include methods like:

Checks via snail mail

Payment gateways like PayPal

Physical and electronic gift cards

Amazon vouchers

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Who’s a Good Fit?

This is a good start if you’re not sure what niche you’d like to start a business in, or if you don’t have too many home business ideas yet. Filling out surveys for money is good for quick cash if you’re in a pinch.

How to Get Started

If you want to get money for surveys, create an account on websites like:

The signup process will vary for each, including setting up payment by giving a physical address or your PayPal link. When you’re done, browse and apply for the surveys you want to fill out (and qualify for), and get going!

For example, Toluna has a simple 9-step signup.

(It sounds long but it’s super fast… I did the first half in 10 seconds! I’ll even give you my “GIF or it didn’t happen”.)

Once you’re registered, it takes you to the Survey Center where you can see all the surveys you qualify for.

More Resources

7. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

The Lowdown

Amazon MTurk is a way for companies to have quick access to online workers who are willing to perform small computer-based tasks. These tasks are called HITs (human intelligence tasks). As you can tell by the name, they need a human touch because computers and artificial intelligence (AI) can’t do them.

Unfortunately, tasks aren’t usually higher than $1 each (usually less), but again – if you have enough time, this could be a great idea for a home business.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

Choose from a diverse pool of HITs, like:

Watch and transcribe videos

Find email addresses or contact information

Evaluate web pages

Share your opinions on websites, videos, etc.

Fill out forms

You can transfer your earnings to your Amazon Payments account or into an Amazon gift card. From Amazon Payments, you can transfer cash directly to your bank account.

Note: When you first sign up, Amazon puts a 10-day hold on your account before you can take out any of your earnings. Just to make sure you’re real and stuff.

Who’s a Good Fit?

If you have a lot of extra time and feel like you don’t yet have the skills for niche-based home business ideas, this can be a good start.

How to Get Started

Create a Worker (not a Requester) account by creating an Amazon account or logging in with your existing Amazon account.

Fill out the Worker Registration form, then go to the “HITs” section in the top menu to view and accept tasks.

More Resources

8. Clickworker

The Lowdown

Clickworker is similar to Amazon MTurk, where you log in and do short tasks for payment. Many users report that this site is more profitable than Amazon MTurk, though, which means it’s a more profitable business idea than MTurk.

Clickworker reports that users average about $9 USD per hour.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

You’ll need to take a short assessment to see if you qualify for each task.

Tasks include:

Writing

Researching

Translating

Data processing

Clickworker pays U.S. workers through PayPal, and international workers can have direct deposits to a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) bank account.

Who’s a Good Fit?

People who don’t want to start a full business or are still cooking up some good niche-based home business ideas.

This site can earn you more money per project than sites like Amazon MTurk, and it also has more diverse types of tasks. It’s better for people who have more specialized skills or experience.

How to Get Started

Create an account and fill out as may details as you can for your profile.

It will ask for things like:

Education and language abilities

Writing and translation skillset and experience

General interests and skills by category (media, sports, home and garden, tourism, etc.)

Samples of previous work and your personal blog (if applicable)

These answers will be how Clickworker qualifies you to do tasks. The more skills you fill in, the more you can make money from home.

More Resources

9. Online Teaching & Tutoring

The Lowdown

There’s a huge need for online teachers and tutors, which makes this a particularly great home business idea. You can teach students of virtually all ages, in-school and beyond – and all across the world.

Who’s a Good Fit?

This home business is ideal for anyone who’s patient, well-spoken, was a good student, and has and a love for learning (and teaching, of course).

Those with previous teaching education or experience will have an easier time finding jobs, especially ones that pay more. But it’s still very possible to start from scratch. You’ll just need to be patient at first.

How to Get Started

Sign up for an account and fill out your profile to the best of your abilities. As usual, the signup with differ for each site. But generally, the screening process is very thorough when you use a specialized service.

For example, TutorMe asks in-depth questions about experience and skills.

And Tutor.com has a 5-step process that includes a mock teaching session and a background check. Better be prepared!

Keep in mind that the platform will collect the customer’s money and send it to you, but they’ll usually take commission as either a percentage or a flat fee.

Who’s a Good Fit?

This home business idea is suited to someone who knows a topic really well, and knows it’s profitable. Bonus points if you have technical skills and equipment to build a professional quality course, whether it’s made of in-person videos, screencasts, or text with photos and illustrations.

You’ll also need a lot of time, and a good eye for making content flow. It may help to work with a writer.

How to Get Started

If your course relies on videos of your computer screen, try a screen recorder and editor like Camtasia. If you can swing it, I recommend renting a studio for in-person videos, to ensure top video and audio quality.

Compare the features of different platforms for making and hosting courses, like:

More Resources

Neil Patel: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating, Selling, and Profiting from an Online Course

5.2. Hands-on Home-Based Business Ideas

If you’re more of a people-person, you might be interested in one of the more hands-on home-based business ideas. With these opportunities, you service your clients in person instead of through your computer screen.

It’s worth noting that this type of business will make you location-dependent, because you’ll have to be able to travel to where your clients need you. In the end, you won’t have the physical freedom of a strictly-online business.

That said, let’s look at a few.

Remember: You might need to get certain licenses and/or permits, depending on your business type and where you live. The Small Business Administration has helpful info for making sure you have all your bases covered legally.

Through this model, you sell a company’s products and receive commission for your sales. You can also recruit your own consultants and build a team (who may go on to build their own teams), which earns more money.

It’s been reported that the average MLM consultant makes $2,400 per year, with earnings going up to more than $100,000 per year.

Many companies give awesome bonuses too, like vacations or even a free car when you reach new sales revenue levels between you and your team.

A word of caution: Some companies are disguised as MLM, but they’re really pyramid or Ponzi schemes – which are illegal in the U.S. and many other countries. The one big red flag is that these illegal schemes will typically only pay you to recruit other members, instead of earning money from any real investment or selling real products or services to the public. So beware and do your research before starting a network marketing opportunity!

How You’ll Make Money from Home

Compensation plans for teams can be set up a few ways:

Unilevel: Your recruits stay in your team. The easiest plan.

Stairstep/breakaway: Your recruits can break away from your team and start their own whenever they reach a certain level.

Binary: You get paid for only two ‘legs’, or essentially two teams.

Matrix: There’s a pre-set amount of your recruits, as well as their recruits. Like 3×3, or three of your own recruits, who can have three of their own.

Who’s a Good Fit?

Frankly, you won’t make big bucks unless you’re social, friendly, motivated, and resourceful. And if you haven’t guessed by the title, it’s crucial to have great sales skills. However, if you have all those characteristics, this could be a viable, profitable home business idea for you.

How to Get Started

There are hundreds to choose from in virtually any industry like health and beauty, fashion, nutrition, home goods, and more.

It’s important to note that you’ll typically need to pay startup costs like buying your own products to sell. This can be around $200 to $500 USD.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

You can set your own terms, financial structure, and incentives. Ideas include:

Charging clients per hour or per service

Setting a monthly retainer fee, which can be set up automatically

Offering discounts or a commission for referrals

In terms of earnings, say that you charge $15 an hour and work 10 hours a week. That would amount to $150 a week or $7,800 a year. (Of course, you’ll need to calculate taxes in your state.)

Who’s a Good Fit?

Dog lovers. Duh. If you love being around dogs, this home business idea wouldn’t just be profitable – it would be super fun! Bonus points if you have experience in obedience training or an understanding of dogs’ temperament.

If you’re doing pet setting, you’ll need to have a pet-friendly home or space you can do business in. If you live in a tiny apartment in downtown Manhattan, stick with walking or go to your clients’ homes to sit.

How to Get Started

You’ll want to look into some legal considerations:

Registering a business, like a sole proprietorship or limited liability company (LLC)

While some businesses can make upwards of thousands per month, it’s important to consider the startup costs. These might include costs like licenses, permits, insurance, cookware, transport vehicles, which can amount to thousands of dollars up-front.

How You’ll Make Money from Home

Caterers and meal preparers usually have a menu with pricing. Depending on your business model, you may also want to charge per person or per platter.

Whatever you do, be sure to include a service charge or otherwise make sure you’re covering operation costs.

Who’s a Good Fit?

People who:

Have a strong passion for cooking

Have experience feeding big groups (it’s not the same as making dinner for your family!)

Are prepared for a lot of work and long hours

Have great customer service skills, as you’ll be working closely with your clients

Chapter 5 Takeaways

If you dream of a career where you can work from wherever you want – be that in a different café or in a different country – you can look into home-based business opportunities like starting a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast.

Consider other home business ideas like affiliate marketing, online teaching and tutoring, or creating online courses.

If you’re undecided on picking your niche but want some quick income, you can try task-based platforms like Amazon MTurk or Clickworker.

If you want to be out and about in your community, you can try your hand at starting a business like direct sales consulting, pet sitting, or catering.

With these home business ideas, the ‘home’ part will mostly be promotion and marketing activities.

Go Forth and Prosper… Er, Stay Home and Prosper

So there you have it!

Hopefully, you’re brimming with ideas and motivation to make money from home with one of the dozens of home business ideas we’ve talked about in this ebook.

You have an idea of:

The differences between a product-based and service-based business

How to choose home-based business ideas that marry your interests and skills

An introduction to marketing your business to make sure it stays profitable

The basics of ecommerce, dropshipping, and selling other products online

The basics of freelancing services like writing, design, and marketing

Several home-based business opportunities that you can do online and in-person

Will you need to spend hours doing your research and freshening up your skills?

Yup.

Will things change as you learn, forcing you to shift and remodel your plans?

Likely.

Will you encounter road bumps and challenges that will make you want to quit?

Almost certainly.

Can you find a way to truly (finally) be happy with your career, actually enjoying your work while you earn money from your couch?